Wynwood Yard in North Beach?:

When Miami Beach Commissioner Ricky Arriola ran into fellow Harvard Business School Alum Della Heiman recently he was intrigued by the success of her Wynwood Yard pop-up food concept and its evolution as an entrepreneurial and community hub. Now the two are cooking up a way to bring the concept to North Beach.

Arriola thinks it is the perfect option to utilize the mostly vacant West Lots on Collins Avenue across from North Shore Open Space Park between now and the time any future development of the lots may occur. He and Heiman tried the concept out this morning at the Mayor’s North Beach Committee meeting and got an enthusiastic response.

The Wynwood Yard offers food and beverage entrepreneurs the opportunity to test concepts with a lower cost of entry by utilizing food trucks and pop-up materials on four vacant lots in the Wynwood Arts District. The food yard also hosts live music and other cultural activities, fitness classes, yoga, art and gardening classes, all showcasing local entrepreneurs.

Heiman described The Yard as “an incubator hub” and said, “It’s all designed to build community and support our local entrepreneurs.” Since its’ opening in November 2015, she said The Yard has “transformed into a venue with 15-30 events a week, attracting people of all social and economic levels, all walks of life.”

Arriola said when he first talked with Heiman about the concept he thought, “It’s cool. It supports local entrepreneurs. It would be amazing if we could get this done in North Beach.”

The Yard has expanded into a fifth vacant lot, which now contains the largest edible organic garden in Miami-Dade County. The garden has a tent down the middle where dinners with up to 70 people can be hosted.

The very casual food yard has also “matured” a bit with a new sit-down restaurant at one corner called Charcoal. Ken Lyon, whose title is “Yard Guru”, opened the restaurant which utilizes shipping containers. “The entire concept is temporary,” Lyon said. “It’s fascinating to see what can be built on vacant land without being considered permanent.”

Responding to questions about the typical hurricane season issues, Heiman said the temporary, pop-up material can be taken down in a couple of hours if need be, something that was tested successfully this past year during Hurricane Matthew.

Despite being told, “You can’t be all things to all people,” Heiman said, “We’ve learned you can be a lot of different kinds of things to a lot of people. [At The Yard], you can bring babies and pets, take a sixth grade field trip and come and celebrate your 85th birthday.”

“All of the seating is communal,” she said. “People are forced by design to sit together and interact when they normally wouldn’t.”

Arriola said he’s been working on the concept for a while now ensuring there were no legal, zoning, or infrastructure issues. Now that he knows there are no roadblocks there, he is eager to get community support for the idea. After the presentation, the North Beach Committee unanimously supported exploring the concept at the City Commission level.

Later, Arriola said that after seeing the resurgence in the Wynwood Arts District and the role The Wynwood Yard has played in that, he thinks bringing the concept to North Beach could be "a great catalyst for the area."

“It’s easy to build in terms of cost and speed,” he said. “It’s just a great thing that we could do relatively quickly. It’s inexpensive without any major commitments.” He said the infrastructure is already in place to support it on the West Lots. Several of them are already wired for electricity and have sewage and plumbing “which dramatically reduces the cost.” Given their use as surface parking lots now, there’s plenty of parking to support it. And, he said, the concept fits within the zoning for that area so no zoning amendments are needed.

Two major developers have indicated their willingness to contribute to the effort according to Arriola. All in all, he thinks it’s a good thing for the City and good for North Beach. “We’re not giving anything away,” he said. “We don’t have to build anything. If it doesn’t get traction, you just shut it down.” But, if it succeeds, it could be “an amazing community amenity.”

Arriola will raise the idea with his fellow Commissioners at the April 26th meeting and ask for a dual referral to the Finance Committee and the Planning Board, and then bring it back to the full Commission as early as June. If all goes well, he’s hoping the concept could be up and running by the end of the year.

Want to give input on the idea? Contact Commissioner Arriola or any Commissioner via email.